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Welcome to the second issue of All In, the Democratic Socialists for Medicare for All newsletter!

First, we have some celebrating to do: Democratic Socialists all over the country ran and won elections in the midterms, and many centered M4A as a key component of their campaign. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were elected to Congress, while the number of Democratic Socialists elected to state legislatures jumped from just four to 11. While the blue “wave” turned out to be more of a trickle, these small gains made by socialists all over the country show our movement is growing and that people are “ready to rally around a politics that foregrounds classwide demands.” Let’s keep the momentum up!

📋 From the campaign

Goodies from the M4A blog and the broader campaign

The public option is not a solution, writes M4A organizer and policy subcommittee member Tim Higginbotham. In this piece published on the M4A blog and later re-published in Jacobin, Higginbotham explains how a public option — which would would allow people to “buy in” to public health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, or a public plan on the ACA market — simply reinforces all the things people hate about our current system, and does little to offer coverage to those who don't already have it. We need universal coverage through a single, public program.

“There is no health without justice, and there is no justice without health,” writes Michael Lighty in this Jacobin piece we re-published ahead of his tour. Lighty explains why single-payer should become a litmus test for all politicians on the campaign trail, and how campaigns like Medicare for All can effectively unite people across the political spectrum. Turning this moment into a movement, he writes, could motivate millions to demand more of the society in which they live.

Rob Hudson has been on Medicare for eight years, and it’s made him realize one thing: How life-changing a single-payer healthcare system would be for millions of American seniors. He’s experienced first-hand how complicated our current patchwork healthcare system is, and although many costs are covered, services such as dental work and vision exams are not. Even with Medicare coverage, he estimates him and his wife still pay more than $10,000 a year for healthcare, not including co-pays, exams and other miscellaneous costs. His solution? A truly universal healthcare system like Medicare for All.

🗞 News

The pitfalls of half-fix healthcare schemesare on full display in a bill put forth by Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). Jayapal co-chairs the House Medicare for All caucus, and her bill makes it easier for any state to request permission to opt out of programs like Medicare and Medicaid and receive federal waivers in their place. While it might put Washington state residents a few inches closer to a state single-payer plans, it offers no meaningful challenge to the insurance industry machine, and in fact it repeats many of the same mistakes made by Obamacare. At this critical moment, we can’t afford to accept these kinds of healthcare “half-fixes.”

The American people overwhelmingly support Medicare for All, but guess who doesn’t? Republicans, centrist democrats and the donor class that keeps them in office. As pundits and party leaders start ratcheting up the anti-M4A rhetoric, it’s important to remember that the fight isn’t between Democrats and Republicans—who see a common enemy in M4A. It’s between regular working people and the corporate class of politicians and industry lobbyists who will seemingly stop at nothing to kill single-payer.

Tens of thousands of children in West Africa will likely die after Merck & Co. Inc. ended a long-term agreement to supply the rotavirus vaccine to four low-income countries, NPR reports. More than a half-million children in West Africa may not receive the vaccine in 2018 and 2019, and the company will completely stop delivering the vaccine by 2020. At the same time, the company has started sending the vaccine to China, where price per dose will likely be more than 10 times the amount sold to Gavi, which distributes the vaccine. The company could massively boost sales if it gains approval to sell the vaccine in China, where the population alone offers a giant untapped customer base, one analyst said.

🔦 Chapter spotlight

A look at what locals are doing around the country

Dubuque DSA is fighting for Medicare for All and created this video to encourage people in their chapter to donate their time and skills to the campaign.